Today on this 2008 Ford F-250 Super Duty we are going to install part number 50060-6008. First thing you want to do is lower the spare tire so you have access to tighten the bolts on the frame brackets. And we can immediately go up the bed and start placing our front rail. What is going to happen is the rail is going to sit in between the fender wells and it is going to place the fifth wheel over the axle. We are going to lay the rail in the bed and then set it in place according to the measurements in the instructions.
When you set up the rails you want to measure from the edge of the bed itself of the rail. You want to do that on both sides, make sure it is even. And then when you have the right distance from the back of the truck make sure you have it equal left and right. All right when you have it centered go ahead and mark the holes to drill out your holes. We will go ahead and drill out a one 1/8 inch hole in centers and then what we will do is double check the holes with a frame bracket before we drill out to a bigger size. With a bracket in place you can look at the instructions, one of the bolt holes is going to be right here, and the other one is going to be in front of that so it is going to be on the other side of the hat channel here so look over here we have some fuel lines. What we are going to do is put something in there to protect those lines. You can use a piece of wood, lots of cardboard, anything just to slow the bit down while it is coming through the metal so you do not actually go through that and hit the lines.
Then we will go back underneath and line up our bracket with those two holes. We drilled out a hole here for the front rail going towards the back of the vehicle, you can see the one 1/8 inch hole is right next to the hat channel here. Lets go ahead and put our bracket up to it and place it and just verify it, but it looks like it is already going to be in the right spot. Just hold it part of the way up and you can see the notch and then the oval hole in the bracket that tells you you are in pretty good alignment. We have our pilot holes drilled, go ahead and move the rail out of the way and drill up to a 9/16 inch hole. Once we have the drivers side established we will go ahead and go over to the passenger side and do the same thing again. All right we will clean up the shavings and put our rail back on and start ping our bolts in. We are going to go ahead and mount the frame bracket now, we are going to use this bolt here as opposed to this one because the frame bracket only uses this one up front and there are two more on the back going towards the rear of the vehicle. It gets its strength from using part of the hat channel right here. Again we are going to leave this all loose because above the bracket here the corrugation goes up and we will probably have to use a spacer in there to take up the extra space. Now we will go to the center attachment for the bracket and that is going to use a 5/8 inch bolt and a block here that will go in between the frame bracket and the frame. Put the block behind the frame bracket and then the bolt through and lift everything up and push it through the frame. All right then we can put our block behind the bolt and the lock washer and the nut.
We will put our u-bolt on, and that is going to sit in front of the shock tower going towards the front of the vehicle. You want to get the top part started first, and then push the bottom of the u-bolt down. And again you want to loosely install the hardware. All right then we are going to repeat all these steps back on the drivers side. Once you have the hardware installed to hold the bracket in place go ahead and put your spacer in between the bracket and the bed of the truck. It is going to be on top of the bed or on the bottom of the bed just depending on how the corrugations lie with the frame rail. In this case we are going to have to go underneath. Next we are going to position the rear rail. Basically we are going to use the fifth wheel itself to put it in the right position for us. So basically we are going to start building the fifth wheel slider assembly. Lets go ahead and put in the sliders first, use that to line up the rails, then we will go ahead and put the handle assembly inside. And put the cotter pins in, which will keep this bar from ever coming apart again. Okay we will just pull one of the legs from the cotter pin up and away. Now go ahead and put our center section in. It can actually be installed two different ways. Basically this middle part here has an off set to it so depending on your make and model of your truck, in this case the off set will be pointed towards the rear of the truck. So we will just go ahead and install it that way. As long as this is above or in front of the center line of the axle you are in good shape. When you bolt a section down you may have to adjust it up or down to match the height of your trailer. So if you can find out the height of the trailer first before you tighten it down. But it is only four bolts you have to change so it is not a big deal. All right then we will go ahead and put the nuts on in the inside of it. I will go ahead and slip in the pins to hold the hitch in place, install the safety pin, run our bolt through the lanyard and just run it in there, it is kind of self threading. Next we will install our warning sticker which tells you when the handle is locked or unlocked. The second rail is going to be the same as the first, go ahead and find our center and mark it, take a punch to get started and then we will go ahead and drill out our holes up to 9/16 inch. Go ahead and install our carriage bolts now, and then we will attach our hardware from underneath to the bracket.
Once you get the bolts snugged down go ahead and try to take the hitch by the rails a few times after you have snugged it down and tested it, again it works the way you want it. Lets go ahead and torque down the bolts. On the u-bolts here we will go ahead and snug those down next, then torque them down. Make sure you snug them down evenly then torque them down equally. Okay next what we are going to do is install some center bolts on the rail itself. If you are going to use this for a goose neck application, not use it for a fifth wheel this will give the rails a little bit extra strength. Find your center, drill your pilot hole as before, and go back with with a 1/ 2 inch bit. All right on the bottom we will install a conical tooth washer and nut, and torque those down as specified. Once we have the last two bolts installed we can go ahead and put the head assembly on the hitch. One final check of the head assembly make sure it tilts left and right, and front to rear, and then make sure the slider section works fine. Take your handle and pull it to the middle, move it backwards. It works fine, the handle locked back into place. Do it again, lock it in towing position and once you are sure that works go ahead and install your safety pin. You want to use this while you are towing to make sure that this bar can not come lose for whatever reason. It just pops in and goes straight to the other side. You may have to wiggle this a little bit, the handle, to get it to line up, but other than that it goes right in. One final check of all the bolts to make sure they are all torqued down. Go ahead and reinstall your spare tire and that finishes your install. And there you have it for part number 50060-6008.
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